Tuesday, April 21, 2026

… Momentum Trading DOW Stocks & ETFs … Stock Market Analysis

 
“Trade what you see; not what you think.” – The Old Fool, Richard McCranie, trader extraordinaire.
 
“Far more money has been lost by investors in preparing for corrections, or anticipating corrections, than has been lost in the corrections themselves.” - Peter Lynch, former manager of Fidelity’s Magellan® fund.
   
"This is maybe the most dangerous market of my career, and that includes 1987's crash, that includes the savings and loan debacle market of the early '90s, that includes the 1999 to 2009 lost decade in the S&P 500 in the dot-com bubble. This is the most difficult market of my 45 years." -  Bill Smead, Smead Value Fund (SMVLX), May 2025.”
 
“Never, never, never, believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever . . . is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.” - Winston Churchill.
 
JUSTICE THOMAS - WSJ LETTER (WSJ)
“Justice Thomas’s remarks were brilliant and he raised numerous excellent points. But the most important of these points is that the Constitution was designed to protect us from “excessive democracy.” The Founders recognized that pure democracies were short-lived, volatile and prone to devolve into tyranny. We are a constitutional republic, and our present inability to recognize the differences between this and a democracy threatens to undermine the protections that the Founders set. We see this in attacks on the Electoral College, the filibuster and the structure of the Senate. Most ominous, however, are attacks on the Supreme Court from both left and right. The court is, at present, the only properly functioning branch of government and the last bulwark against attempts to undermine that brilliant document that is the Constitution.” - Jim Reardon
My cmt: Virginia is currently experimenting with “tyranny of the majority” in a Gerrymandering Constitutional Amendment. It asks voters to abandon a 6-year-old Constitutional Amendment that established a non-partisan redistricting procedure. In its place, Democrats request the power to turn the Commonwealth from 6 Democratic and 5 Republican held Congressional Districts to 10 Democrat and 1 Republican. The stated reason is to counter Donald Trump. In other words, thru fear and false promises, the majority (assuming the Amendment passes) will remove representation from millions of Virginians and provide representatives who will vote against the desires of the voters in those Republican leaning Districts. That’s “excessive democracy” in action where the majority screws the minority.  
 
QUICK MARKET SUMMARY
-Tuesday the S&P 500 declined about 0.6% to 7064.
-VIX rose about 3% to 19.50.
-The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.299% (compared to about this time prior market day).
 
MY TRADING POSITIONS
SPY – Added 12/1/2025.
NVDA – Added 12/1/2025 & 2/6/2026
“Despite all the bearish noise, Goldman Sachs isn’t backing down on Nvidia (NVDA) stock yet. After another stellar GTC showing, the bank reiterated its $250 price target and maintained a buy rating, underscoring confidence in the AI giant’s tremendous upside from current levels.” Story at…  
 
CURRENT SUMMARY OF APPROXIMATELY 50 INDICATORS:
At the close today, of the 50-Indicators I track, 6 gave Bear-signs and 19 were Bullish. The rest are neutral. (It is normal to have a lot of neutral indicators since many of the indicators are top or bottom indicators that will signal only at extremes.)
 
TODAY’S COMMENT
The daily, bull-bear spread of 50-indicators declined from +15 to +13 (13 more Bull indicators than Bear indicators), a BULLISH indication. I consider +5 to -5 the neutral zone. The 10-dMA curve of the spread (purple on the chart above) that smooths daily fluctuations continued higher, a BULLISH sign that is more important than the daily numbers
 
Today, Tuesday, was a Bearish Outside Reversal Day.
The Bearish Outside Reversal signal remains in place until the S&P 500 closes above the high on the Reversal Day. 
“An outside reversal is a price pattern that indicates a potential change in trend on a price chart. The two-day pattern is observed when a security’s high and low prices for the day exceed the high and low of the previous day’s trading session... Technical analysts and experienced traders prefer to build trading signals using this identification in conjunction with other information such as trend, support and resistance or technical studies.” – Investopedia.
 
I won’t chase this market, but as the war news gets better, I may get more comfortable with adding to stock positions. As a retiree, I am conservative. It is better not to lose than it is to worry about making every penny.
 
BOTTOM LINE
I am cautiously bullish. I don’t expect declines from here to be large, but it all depends on the news.
 
ETF - MOMENTUM ANALYSIS:
TODAY’S RANKING OF 15 ETFs (Ranked Daily) ETF ranking follows:
 
The top ranked ETF receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading ETF.
*For additional background on the ETF ranking system see NTSM Page at…
 
DOW STOCKS - TODAY’S MOMENTUM RANKING OF THE DOW 30 STOCKS (Ranked Daily)
 
The top ranked Stock receives 100%. The rest are then ranked based on their momentum relative to the leading Stock.
For more details, see NTSM Page at…
 
TUESDAY MARKET INTERNALS (NYSE DATA)
My basket of Market Internals remained BUY. (My basket of Market Internals is a decent trend-following analysis that is most useful when it diverges from the Index.) 
 
 
My invested position is about 55% stocks, including stock mutual funds and ETFs. 50% invested in stocks is a normal, conservative position for a retiree. (80% is my max stock allocation when I am confident that markets will continue higher; 30% in stocks is my Bear market position.)
                                              
I trade about 15-20% of the total portfolio using the momentum-based analysis I provide here although I don’t trade as much as I used to. When I see bullish signs, I add a lot more stocks to the portfolio, usually by using an S&P 500 ETF as I did back in October 2022 and 2023.
 
 
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